Review: Defenders of the Earth – The Complete Series / Cert: U / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Adam Carl, Ron Feinberg, Buster Jones / Release Date February 18th

The ’80s have come to be regarded as a golden age of cartoons. It was the decade of He-Man, She-Ra, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, The Real Ghostbusters, Thundercats, TMNT and The Transformers. But as superhero team-ups are currently box office gold, with their animated counterparts soaring high in the ratings, there has never been a better time to revisit Defenders of the Earth.

DC Comics has the Justice League, Marvel has the Avengers, and in response, King Features Syndicate brought together their most successful newspaper comic strip characters in a group for this 1986 series.

The Defenders are comprised as follows: Flash Gordon, saviour of the universe – need we say more? The Phantom – ‘the ghost who walks’, hero of the African jungle, able to summon the power of the jungle animals (though someone should tell him that tigers are indigenous to India, not Africa). (This is the 27th Phantom, by the way, as the title has been handed down from father to son for over 400 years – although you wonder what’s going to happen next, since the present incumbent has a daughter). The dapper Mandrake the Magician, resplendent in top hat, tails and opera cape is a master illusionist able somehow to hypnotise robots and establish a mental contact with computers. Rounding off the roster is Mandrake’s assistant, super-strong African American Lothar, along with their respective children who don’t really contribute much, except to get into trouble – often.

The gang come together in the opening episode where Flash, in the near future of 2015, escapes from the planet Mongo (in a departure from previous established continuity, now a frozen planet), but has to return to free his wife and son who are Ming the Merciless’ prisoners. Flash mounts a rescue mission with his new allies. Alas, Gordon’s wife is killed. However, her essence lives on in a crystal and is incorporated into the Defenders’ supercomputer, Dynak-X.

Plotting to conquer Earth for its resources, Ming builds a secret base in the Arctic, but as the episodes unfold, his master-plan soon take second place to his schemes to create global mischief and vanquish the Defenders – particularly his arch-nemisis, Flash Gordon. To this end, he enlists the help of all manner of villains, demons, monsters and aliens over 65 entertaining episodes.

Though aimed firmly at a juvenile audience in its day, there’s no doubt that this 7-disc set will attract the attention of nostalgic older viewers, the more observant of whom will notice names like The Big Bang Theory co-creator Chuck Lorre among the show’s writers. Speaking of writers – the theme song lyrics are credited to the supervising story editor, Stan Lee. For the sheer audacity of the maddeningly catchy lyrics, Stan should’ve won a Grammy that year.

All in all, wonderfully addictive – you can never watch just one episode.

Extras: None

Review: Vile / Cert: 18 / Director: Taylor Sheridan / Screenplay: Eric Jay Beck, Rob Kowsaluk / Starring: Eric Jay Beck, April Matson, Akeem Smith / Release Date: January 14th

It’s fair to say that the torture porn horror subgenre has had its day, replaced by found footage and never ending zombie films. Not that it was a complete loss. After all, it led to Hostel and the first two Saw films. All of which brings us neatly to Vile, a pretty solid late addition to the roster.

After a nice, relaxing day in the countryside, two couples stop at a petrol station, where they are drugged by an attractive hitchhiker. They awaken in a run-down house with five other strangers. All of them have weird pipes and devices stuck to the back of their head. A video informs them that they are there to provide certain chemicals from their brains that are produced when in pain for a new kind of designer drug. When the bar on the screen reaches 100%, they will be set free; if this does not happen within 24 hours, they will all die. The group have no choice but to pull each other’s fingernails out, burn each other and engage in other acts of terror. Some like it a little too much, some have secrets from the rest of the group and some go absolutely crazy from the stress of it all.

While it is certainly disturbing and bloody, Vile stops some way short of living up to its name. The story doesn’t bash you over the head with graphic gore; instead, things are allowed to build slowly. When events do boil over into violence, the camera has a habit of pulling away at the last moment, leaving your imagination to do the work. Crucially, this is a horror film with a diverse cast of characters ranging from likeable and to utterly hateful, and this makes the twists and turns all the more effective.

Vile is let down by some abysmal acting in some scenes as well as by a lapse into incoherence in the last twenty minutes. But that still leaves an hour and change of very decent entertainment, and you shouldn’t let the dodgy cover and subject matter put you off.

Extras: None

Review: U.F.O. / Cert: 15 / Director: Dominic Burns / Screenplay: Dominic Burns / Starring: Bianca Bree, Sean Brosnan, Simon Phillips, Sean Pertwee, Jean-Claude Van Damme/ Release Date: Out Now

Sadly not the long awaited feature film reboot of the late Gerry Anderson’s seminal live-action 1960s sci-fi series, but thankfully also not ‘comedian’ Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown’s 1993 feature film debut, this is a very British loose change alien invasion movie which inevitably doesn’t amount to much but is fizzing with equal amounts of enthusiasm and headache-inducing SHOUTING.

U.F.O. starts out fairly promisingly as a bunch of over-sexed party people in glamorous West Derby wake up after a night on the razz to find that there’s no power, no TV and radio, and – shriek! – no mobile phone coverage. But they don’t panic, they just get on with the business of sitting it out until normality is restored. Move on a couple of days, though, and a giant spaceship is hanging above the city and suddenly everyone’s running around shouting and fighting… and shouting some more. The film throws away its initial subtlety and sense of growing unease: the desperately limited budget makes showing the full effect of the invasion impossible – FX are kept to a minimum, which is just as well because they’re generally a bit ropey – and, as if to compensate, the characters all start to get hysterical. Unfortunately, as none of them is even remotely likeable, it’s hard to work up much of an interest in what happens to them, and before long you’re willing them to get bumped off asap just so we can all get on with our lives and do something else.

Jean-Claude Van Damme turns up for no apparent reason, and U.F.O. is punctuated by long, clumsy fight scenes (a tussle between one character and a policeman goes on forever) which appear to have been included just to pad things out and keep the action indoors. One scene filmed in pouring rain is unintelligible despite the cast yelling at the tops of their voices, and as the performances get more histrionic and the scenario less and less interesting you’ll be hoping the aliens will stop messing about and just nuke the lot of ‘em to spare us any more misery.

U.F.O. is a misfire which has neither the coherent script nor the budget to even begin to make it work. And that’s a shame, because we need a halfway decent UK alien invasion film after American duds like Skyline and The Darkest Hour. But writer/director Dominic Burns, whilst clearly an enthusiastic filmmaker, needs to scale his ambitions back a bit and learn his craft before embarking on another project as ambitious as this one.

Extras: None

Review: Dear God No! / Cert: 18 / Director: James Bickert / Screenplay: James Bickert / Starring: Jett Bryant, Madeline Brumby, Paul McComisky, Olivia LaCroix / Release Date: January 14th 

Aspiring filmmakers with no appreciable skill or talent whatsoever have been able to handily hide their lack of ability behind the grindhouse tag over the last few years, churning out grubby, cheap little movies, adding a few crackly on-screen visual affectations for extra sleaze value and then, presumably, sitting back and waiting for critics and audiences to tell them how smart and knowing they’ve been. Not this time, buster. Dear God No! is a grindhouse-cum-biker pic, but whatever it is, there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s a truly vile, repellent, nasty-looking piece of work which only succeeds in making the viewer wish that cinema had never been invented.

James Bickert’s foul script, appallingly directed, concerns a gang of devil-worshipping bikers (all in their fifties, by the looks of them) who like nothing more than murdering nuns and raping people. After a shootout in a topless bar, they stumble across a remote cabin where a former Nazi scientist is experimenting on bringing the dead – and specifically his late wife – back to life. The scientist, for reasons which we can scarcely be bothered to remember, is dining with an expectant young couple when the bikers arrive and start killing and raping everyone. Then Sasquatch turns up and tears people’s heads off. Then there’s a bit more raping.

We’re made of stern stuff here at Starburst (we got through Battleship, after all) but Dear God No! just goes too far. This is essentially pornography of the lowest order; the violence would be brutally offensive if it weren’t so ineptly realised (but one sequence involving a pregnant woman is stomach-churningly grotesque and makes you fear for minds that are capable of creating such disturbing garbage) and the dire acting is no more than such effluence deserves. Bickert’s witless, clueless direction and the desperately low production values (it’s all shot on 16mm for that authentic 1970s grindhouse feel) are the rancid icing on a poisonous cake which should never have been baked.

If a mate of yours is a grindhouse connoisseur, and he or she invites you to see this raunchy new movie they’ve got their hands on, take our advice and (obvious review conclusion alert) tell ‘em, “Dear God, no!” This is right up there with the very worst things ever made in any medium.

Extras: Two cuts of the film, the theatrical cut and the all new exclusive Grindhouse cut / Full colour booklet / Audio commentaries / Gag reel / Slideshows / Promos

Review: Wrong Turn 5 / Cert: 18 / Director: Declan O’Brien / Screenplay: Declan O’Brien / Starring: Doug Bradley, Camilla Arfwedson, Simon Ginty / Release Date: January 28th

There’s a point, in the latest Wrong Turn film, where one character turns to another and says, “Another wrong turn, huh?” Yes, another, and the procession of stupid victims with crap navigational skills shows no sign of abating anytime soon. Just buy a sat nav already.

Bloodlines is a sequel to last year’s prequel, Bloody Beginnings. On the run from their trashed mental hospital home, the three cannibalistic, inbred brothers stalk the woodlands near a small West Virginian town, assisted by carer Maynard (Bradley, but apparently the same character as portrayed toothlessly by Wayne Robson in the first two movies). When Maynard is run over and arrested by a well-meaning local Sheriff (Arfwedson), the boys will stop at nothing to get him back. What ensues is like Assault on Precinct 13 crossed with a more conventional Wrong Turn movie.

Those looking for artistic merit in Wrong Turn 5 will find little to enjoy. It’s cynical, lazy and cheap. Stupid, cruel and nasty. It’s badly written, badly acted and only passably directed. It is, however, one of this Wrong Turn fan’s favourite entries – the very definition of a guilty pleasure. The film takes place around the town’s annual Mountain Man Festival, a fancy dress celebration of inbred hillbillies everywhere. A passing contingent of stupid teenagers find themselves caught up in the muties’ raid upon the police station when one of their number is also arrested along with Maynard. With the mutants free to come and go as they please (it’s a town with about two cops to its name), it looks to be the last wrong turn these kids will ever make.

As locals, teenagers and cops are quickly and very violently knocked off one by one, Doug Bradley (Pinhead!) sits in his cell, sneering maliciously at everyone – including his own hillbilly family. His Maynard is incredibly underused, but he brings some much needed class to the project (if only by Hellraiser osmosis, since this is not a great performance). Meanwhile, the kill sequences are reliably gory and inventive. There’s nothing to match Bloody Beginnings‘ fondue scene, but a bit with a thresher and a football field is a highlight. There’s also a truly disgusting intestinal dinner scene and a gag made from duct tape and a shotgun. What it lacks in intelligence and plot, it makes up for in gleeful offensiveness and Doug Bradley looking like a grubby John Locke from Lost.

Ultimately, Bloodlines delivers everything you’d expect from a straight-to-DVD Wrong Turn sequel. It’s crass, exploitative, extremely violent and very stupid. Fans should love it, then.

Extras: Audio commentary by Declan O’Brien / Director’s die-aries / ‘A Day in the Death’ clip / ‘Hillbilly Kills’ clip

Review: Vampire Ecstasy / Cert: 18 / Director: Joseph W. Sarno / Screenplay: Joseph W. Sarno / Starring: Nadia Henkowa, Anke Syring, Marie Forså, Nico Wolferstetter / Release Date: January 21st

While not the most famous of names in the sexploitation genre, Joe Sarno was nevertheless one of its leading players. With Vampire Ecstasy (aka Veil of Blood or The Devil’s Plaything) he crossed over into the horror scene, albeit in a very small way.

In a familiar horror trope, a group of young girls have been invited to an old castle, whose housekeeper Wanda (Henkova) and her maidens happen to be vampires/witches/weirdo sex maniacs (delete as you will). Wanda decides that the pretty young Helga (Forså, later to be a major star in Scandinavian exploitation films such as Flossie) would be the ideal vessel in which to resurrect her vampire mistress, Baroness Varga. However, two other visitors, Julia and Peter, (Syring and Wolferstetter), try put a stop to their plan.

Sporting crucifixes made from garlic cloves around their necks, the group attempt to fend off the lustful locals, who retaliate by dancing naked around a burning cauldron, brandishing phallic candles to a hypnotic drumbeat, thus causing the girls to lose all inhibitions and have continual masturbation sessions. Helga comes off worse, as her itch just can’t be scratched. “Make the throbbing stop!” she begs the cruel Wanda.

Unusually for a German movie, the cast were required to mouth English dialogue, which is all good and fine, except as it’s not their native language, the acting is stilted to say the least. Also, after over 90 minutes of almost none stop boobs (nice as they are) you do wish for something a little more, and the climax is a bit of a damp squib. While Henkova makes a very imposing villain, there’s no real sense of danger. The castle location is wonderful, however, and the cinematography is a cut above the usual standard for this type of sleaze and creates a surreal atmosphere in which anything could happen (but sadly doesn’t).

This release, the first time in the UK, is uncut and looks great, and those rhythmic drums will be beating in your head long after the credits roll. It’s more for fans of Jean Rollin than Hammer, so if softcore vintage eroticism is your bag, it’s worth a look.

Extras: ‘A Touch of Horror’ – a 6 minute interview with the late director, Joseph Sarno, which is interesting but not in depth.

Review: The Bloody Judge / Cert: 18 / Director: Jesus Franco / Screenplay: Enrico Colombo, Jesus Franco, Michael Haller, Harry Alan Towers, Anthony Scott Veitch / Starring: Christopher Lee, Maria Schell, Leo Glenn, Howard Vernon, Maria Rohm / Release Date: January 21st 2013

Prolific filmmaker Jesus (Jess) Franco could be the movie equivalent of Marmite, but with a back catalogue that runs to almost 200 films, there’s bound to be at least a couple of his flicks that a mainstream audience could enjoy. This 1970 offering may well be one of them.

It’s the late 17th century, and ‘Hanging Judge’ George Jeffries (Lee) is busy doling out the death penalty to anyone and everyone opposed to the reigning monarch, King James II. If no evidence of treason is forthcoming, accusations of witchcraft make a handy standby. When one particular girl is burnt at the stake (having refused Jeffries’ offer of leniency in exchange for sexual favours), her sister (Rohm) plots against the Judge with the aid of her well-connected lover (Harry Hass, Jr.).

Obviously riding on the coattails of Witchfinder General, this film comes from the period of Spanish director Franco’s collaboration with British producer Harry Alan Towers. It was the pair’s third film with Christopher Lee, and the horror legend is on brilliant form here as the real life judge, bringing a gravitas which is missing from most of Franco’s oeuvre. The director’s on good form too, demonstrating his wonderful eye for setting up a scene and refraining from the numerous fast zooms which tend to annoy his detractors. There is a copious amount of female nudity and sadistic violence in this, the most complete available print of the film, which runs some ten minutes longer than previous UK releases. There are a number of short sequences which are in German as they were not in the other English speaking versions, but there is none of that loss in quality that you usually get with cut and paste jobs (the aforementioned Witchfinder General being a case in point). While it’s not as graphic as today’s films, it does go a little further than the Hammer style it emulates. Some of the dubbing on the Spanish actors is unintentionally funny, often from the Dick Van Dyke school of accents. Franco regular Howard Vernon pops up as the executioner, in what should have been a nod to Boris Karloff’s role in Tower of London, but he ends up looking more like Marty Feldman. As a historical drama (if not as historically accurate as Lee would have liked) it holds up well, and has a fantastic, if sparingly used, Bruno Nicolai score. The widescreen print used for this release looks great, too.

Extras: An interesting 25 minute interview with both Franco and Lee, talking separately. It’s well edited, and they both have a lot to say. There are some alternate scenes from different versions of the film, and one deleted scene, a stills gallery and the obligatory trailer (under its awful US title, Night of the Blood Monster).

Review: Hollow / Cert: 15 / Director: Michael Axelgaard / Screenplay: Matthew Holt / Starring: Emily Plumtree, Sam Stockman, Matt Stockoe / Release Date: January 28th

Hollow is a thoroughly British horror film. A small band of young people go out into the wilds of Suffolk to have a good time in an old, abandoned monastery. They quickly learn that the local tree is a notorious spot for suicides and has an unpleasant, ghost-related history. And you can bet it rains too.

This is Michael Axelgaard’s first time out as a director, and he uses the found footage format, which has been a mixed blessing for many a debut horror movie maker. On the one hand, it allows for a more basic approach to filming, but it can also hamper the flow of the story and its documentary nature severely limits the plot. Hollow gets past these limitations through some fairly clever scripting and by focusing heavily on interpersonal relationships. Trouble is, this throws up another issue. In short; it’s not that interesting.

The acting is good, especially for a small indie horror, but the characterisation is problematic. The protagonists are very realistic and believable, but also a little dull. What works in a real world conversation can be less than gripping when committed to film, and though Hollow doesn’t quite get utterly boring, it doesn’t go out of its way to excite you either. As a result, though the story spends a lot of time allowing the viewer to become familiar with the cast, they all remain slightly unlikeable. Not enough for you to wish them a sticky end, but almost.

Fans of British ghost stories and found footage movies will find this a nice way to pass the time. However, if you’re a gorehound looking for plenty of chills, you will be disappointed. Hollow is a haunting, slow-burn movie that is slightly above average. As low-budget, first time features go, it’s okay, but we do hope that the next movie they produce is more engaging.

Extras: None

Review: House of 1000 Dolls / Cert: 15 / Director: Jeremy Summers / Screenplay: Harry Alan Towers / Starring: Vincent Price, Martha Nyer, George Nader, Ann Smyrner / Release Date: January 28th

Yet another slice of Euro-sleaze from the stable of Brit producer Harry Alan Towers. And it’s got Vincent Price in it. But is it as doll-icious as it sounds? We think not.

This is a tale of sex trafficking, in which stage illusionist Felix Manderville (Price) and his assistant Rebecca (Hyer) aid a mysterious kingpin, known only as the King of Hearts, to procure new girls for his brothels in down-town Tangiers. George Armstrong (Nader, ‘famous’ for his lead in grade Z turkey Robot Monster) and his wife, Marie (Smyrner), become involved when they find out one of their pals has been murdered while attempting to track down his missing girlfriend (played by Tower’s wife Maria Rohm, who, surprise, surprise, managed to feature in many of his films). Without knowing what they are getting into, the couple head into the seedy underworld to find out what has happened, with the Great Manderville all too willing to help.

The film was directed by a veteran of various action-oriented TV shows, but you certainly couldn’t tell – the pacing is patchy, with long periods of very little happening. Although Tower’s script (written under his pen name of Peter Welbeck) has to shoulder at least part of the blame, stuffed as it is with grand ideas that don’t come to fruition, and plot strands that go nowhere until the frantic climax. Which is not to say all is lost. The cinematography (by Manual Merino, who was behind the lens on some of Jess Franco’s best, such as Vampyros Lesbos and Count Dracula) is wonderful, and kudos must go to Mediumrare for releasing the film in it’s original widescreen format, rather than the full frame version that is screened on TV, so we can make the most of it. Fans of Price will enjoy his performance, which invokes his turn in The Mad Magician, but there are all too few macabre touches (the delivery of one of the ‘dolls’ in a coffin and hearse is a stand out) and even he apparently rated the movie as one of his worst. It just never gets seedy enough to have that sleaze factor we look for in this type of film, but it could pass a few hours on a wet Sunday afternoon.

Extras: None

Review: Creepozoids (Grindhouse 4) / Cert: 18 / Director: David DeCoteau / Screenplay: Buford Hauser, David DeCoteau / Starring: Linnea Quigley, Ken Abraham, Michael Aranda / Release Date: January 14th 2013

Take the claustrophobic menace of Alien. Add the shape-shifting terror of The Thing. Then subtract cash and technical know-how and shoot the whole shebang for $75,000 in a basement. And hey presto, you have Creepozoids (1987). Oi, stop sniggering, this is serious.

It’s a post-nuclear 1998. (Sorry, when? Oh, right, ’80s film.) Society is in ruins. Deadly poison rain pours from the sky. Fleeing the next band of bad weather, a small gang of army deserters seeks refuge in an abandoned underground laboratory. With its shelves of provisions and hot running water, it’s a sweet hideout. But no piece of real estate is absolutely perfect, and this one’s infested with giant rats and home to a fish-face lizard-man who likes to lurch at people, spitting black goo. Damn you, mad scientists and your crazy amino acids experiments!

With poison rain chucking it down outside, the gang have no choice but to stand their ground, in a repeatedly-running-up-and-down-the-same-corridor-screaming sort of way. They’re plagued by the giant rodents, two of them die spewing black goo, one of them turns into a zombie (which dies spewing black goo too… lots of black goo in this movie, lots of spewing). It’s a busy outing for horror queen Linnea Quigley, who, in her role as a tousle-haired rookie, totes a gun, takes a shower, gets a giant rat up her T-shirt and runs up and down that corridor with everyone else. There’s a protracted grab and throw showdown between the monster and the dwindling survivors – protracted because the monster moves with all the nimbleness of a pantomime horse – before a save-the-best-till-last gross-out finale which involves a killer baby and an umbilical cord being used as a deadly weapon.

Apart from the wait… what?… rewind that! ending, the scares and plot beats are genre standard only, but it’s all reasonably atmospheric thanks to the ’80s murk-o-vision cinematography, and director/co-writer David DeCoteau hustles things along in a satisfyingly brisk, unfussy manner. There’s some green discolouration to the picture in several of the darker scenes, but generally this is a reasonably sharp DVD transfer of a movie which wears its straight-to-VHS heritage on its sleeve. Newbies to 88 Films’ Grindhouse Collection should probably start elsewhere, but aficionados of video store schlock who know what they’re letting themselves in for will likely find plenty here to tickle their fancy. Fleshing out the disc is a lengthy bonus doc called Film Gore, which is basically just a compilation of spatter mayhem from vintage drive-in movies … wait, did we say just? More ketchup!

Extras: Film Gore (1983) Bonus Film / Full Moon Trailer Park / Stills Gallery / Original Trailer / Reversible sleeve incorporating original artwork